Tax and the business of biotechnology

Taxation may not be the first topic which comes to mind when scientists decide to take the plunge and launch their own business from the base of their scientific knowledge. Indeed, there are always more pressing problems to be considered in forming any business — I have experience of helping the founders of biotechnology businesses prepare business plans and cash forecasts to raise money which gives me an insight into the multiplicity of issues to be addressed, many more important than taxation. However, taxation issues are ignored at great risk.     

Catching the pulse: money and circulation in a Sri Lankan marketplace

This article traces the movement, management, and generation of money in a Sri Lankan wholesale vegetable market, pulling into focus certain local economic and moral logics. What traders do with cash is revealing. I argue that how traders use money – the way it is handled, risked, spent, and lent – exhibits skill, implies hierarchy, and cultivates social connections. Exploring idioms of economic activity such as ‘catching the pulse’ and ‘rolling the money’, the article examines relations between different kinds of trader. Moving money through businesses permits participation in the complex communication network of the market. This is central to existing in the social world of the trader. I argue that following money notes – rather than commodities – as they travel around the marketplace and between the hands of transactors renders ethnographically observable the formations of personhood and long‐term relations that take place in the market.     

How to manifest abundance: money and the rematerialization of exchange in Sedona,Arizona, USA

Manifestation is a spiritual practice with material gains. It is a way for those involved with spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, to make money as required while maintaining a level of consonance between their economic life and spiritual path. Analysing the entwinement of economics and religion in everyday life, this article contributes to literature on spiritual economies and, more broadly, to the anthropology of money. Manifestation is a way of figuratively rematerializing exchange, mirrored in preferences for trade and barter and currency backed by gold. Dematerialized money – the stocks, bonds, and derivatives of high finance – is rejected as enacting a low vibration; it is negatively valenced in cosmologies of spirituality. Preferences for money forms reveal responses and reactions to neoliberal capitalism in an embedded, industrialized economy.     

‘Bridges to cash’: channelling agency in mobile money

Encountered by mobile money professionals – industry and philanthropic actors seeking to bring mobile phone‐enabled financial products to poor people in the ‘developing world’ – the authors move together with new collaborators to inquire into a problem they had been grappling with for some time. This is the problem of agency; specifically, the agency of ‘mobile money agents’, the people ‘on the ground’ or ‘in the field’ who form a crucial function in permitting others to put cash into an electronic money transfer system and pull cash out of it. These ‘human ATMs’ or ‘bridges to cash’ become the object of analytical scrutiny for mobile money experts and anthropologists. This article takes that analytical scrutiny – and not mobile money agents themselves – as its object. It seeks to understand how ‘agency’ inflects debates over money, its meaning and its pragmatics, and its transformation in new communicative infrastructures, and how it might inform anthropology and political struggles over money and payment.     

Giving More to Humans than to Animals in Need? A Behavioral Measure of Animal–Human Continuity in Large-scale Surveys

Survey research on attitudes and behavior toward animals is affected by the hypothetical character of behavioral measurements and socially desirable responses. Drawing on previous research in the fields of environmental behavior and behavioral economics, we combined the advantages of incentivized behavioral experiments and large-scale surveys by asking 2,299 participants in “dictator games” to allocate 10 euros between a charity for poverty reduction and themselves, as well as between a charity for animal protection and themselves (presented in counterbalanced order, with 200 allocations paid to the charities and participants). On average, participants donated approximately 70% of the 10 euros to each charity but donated slightly more money (0.42 euros) for poverty reduction than animal protection. Interestingly, participants allocated the same amount of money to the first charity (whether for humans or animals), but their second allocation depended on the charity and indicated an anthropocentric bias (i.e., higher allocations to poverty reduction than animal protection). Women donated more for animal protection than men, and stronger pro-animal attitudes were associated with higher donations for animal protection. We also found a positive effect of a “social desirability” scale on incentivized donations. In sum, our study finds that participants gave more to humanitarian than animal charities. However, this difference is less than fifty cents and, consequently, minor in magnitude.     

Oxytocin infusion increases charitable donations regardless of monetary resources

This study examined if the prosocial effects of oxytocin (OT) extend from individuals to a generalized other who is in need. Participants played a series of economic games to earn money and were presented with an opportunity to donate a portion of their earnings to charity. OT did not significantly increase the decision to donate, but among the 36% of participants who did donate, people infused with OT were found to donate 48% more to charity than those given a placebo. The amount of money earned in the experiment had no effect on whether or not a donation was made or the size of a donation. This is the first study showing that OT increases generosity in unilateral exchanges directed toward philanthropic social institutions, as opposed to immediate benefits directed at individuals or groups.     

The long-term benefits of human generosity in indirect reciprocity

Among the theories that have been proposed to explain the evolution of altruism are direct reciprocity and indirect reciprocity. The idea of the latter is that helping someone or refusing to do so has an impact on one's reputation within a group. This reputation is constantly assessed and reassessed by others and is taken into account by them in future social interactions. Generosity in indirect reciprocity can evolve if and only if it eventually leads to a net benefit in the long term. Here, we show that this key assumption is met. We let 114 students play for money in an indirect and a subsequent direct reciprocity game. We found that although being generous, i.e., giving something of value to others, had the obvious short-term costs, it paid in the long run because it builds up a reputation that is rewarded by third parties (who thereby themselves increase their reputation). A reputation of being generous also provided an advantage in the subsequent direct reciprocity game, probably because it builds up trust that can lead to more stable cooperation.     

The brave new era of human genetic testing

The commercialization of 'big science' is in full swing, leading to situations in which the ethical principles of academia are beginning to be compromised. This is exemplified by the profitable business of genetic ancestry testing. The goals of this sort of 'big science' are not necessarily in any way novel, however. In particular, large genotyping projects have a certain start-up time when their design is frozen in, so that the projects often lag behind the development of genetic knowledge. On the other hand, extremely provisional knowledge about potential disease markers is being rapidly turned into questionable 'tests', purporting to determine risk factors for complex disorders, by private companies that are eager to get their share of a profitable market of the future. The flow of money generated by such concerns looks likely to erode traditional research operations and small-scale projects, which risk becoming pebbles on the 'big science' landscape.     

Donors to charity gain in both indirect reciprocity and political reputation

Darwinian evolution can explain human cooperative behaviour among non-kin by either direct or indirect reciprocity. In the latter case one does not expect a return for an altruistic act from the recipient as with direct reciprocity, but from another member of the social group. However, the widespread human behaviour of donating to poor people outside the social group, for example, to charity organizations, that are unlikely to reciprocate indirectly and thus are equivalent to defectors in the game is still an evolutionary puzzle. Here we show experimentally that donations made in public to a well-known relief organization resulted both in increased income (that the donors received from the members of their group) and in enhanced political reputation (they were elected to represent the interests of their group). Donations may thus function as an honest signal for one's social reliability.     

Reputation,a universal currency for human social interactions

Decision rules of reciprocity include ‘I help those who helped me’ (direct reciprocity) and ‘I help those who have helped others’ (indirect reciprocity), i.e. I help those who have a reputation to care for others. A person''s reputation is a score that members of a social group update whenever they see the person interacting or hear at best multiple gossip about the person''s social interactions. Reputation is the current standing the person has gained from previous investments or refusal of investments in helping others. Is he a good guy, can I trust him or should I better avoid him as a social partner? A good reputation pays off by attracting help from others, even from strangers or members from another group, if the recipient''s reputation is known. Any costly investment in others, i.e. direct help, donations to charity, investment in averting climate change, etc. increases a person''s reputation. I shall argue and illustrate with examples that a person''s known reputation functions like money that can be used whenever the person needs help. Whenever possible I will present tests of predictions of evolutionary theory, i.e. fitness maximizing strategies, mostly by economic experiments with humans.     

Why household inefficiency? An experimental approach to assess spousal resource distribution preferences in a subsistence population undergoing socioeconomic change

Two disparate views of the sexual division of labour have dominated the representation of intra-household resource allocations. These joint and separate interests views differ in their interpretation of the relative roles of men and women, and make different predictions about the extent to which marriage promotes economic efficiency (i.e. maximized household production). Using an experimental “distribution task” stipulating a trade-off between household efficiency and spousal equality in allocating surpluses of meat and money, we examine factors influencing spousal distribution preferences among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia (n = 53 couples). Our primary goal is to understand whether and how access to perfectly fungible and liquid resources – which increases with greater participation in market economies – shifts intra-household distribution preferences. We hypothesize that greater fungibility of money compared to meat results in greater squandering of money for individual fitness gain at a cost to the family. Money therefore requires costly strategies to insure against a partner's claims for consumption. Whereas nearly all Tsimane spouses prefer efficient meat distributions, we find a substantially reduced efficiency preference for money compared to meat controlling for potential confounders (adjusted OR = 0.087, 95% CI: 0.02–0.38). Reported marital conflict over paternal disinvestment is associated with a nearly 13-fold increase in odds of revealing a selfish money distribution preference. Selfish husbands are significantly more likely than other husbands to be paired with selfish wives. Lastly, Tsimane husbands and wives are more likely than Western Europeans to prefer an efficient money distribution, but Tsimane wives are more likely than Western European wives to exhibit a selfish preference. In sum, preferences for the distribution of household production surplus support joint and separate interests views of marriage; a hybrid approach best explains how ecological-, family-, and individual-level factors influence spousal preferences through their effects on perceptions of marginal gains within and outside the household.     

The growth of Korean immigrant entrepreneurship in Chicago

The growth of Korean immigrant entrepreneurship in Chicago is a product of three interacting factors: employment opportunities in the general labour market, resource mobilization, and business opportunity structures. Because of their language barrier and less transferable education and occupational skills in the American labour market, many Korean immigrants could not find white‐collar occupations for which they had been trained. Disadvantaged, but still strongly motivated for upward economic mobility in the United States, many of them became self‐employed business owners. Korean immigrants’ middle‐class backgrounds and their stable family structures and strong family ties helped them to realize their goal of business ownership. In addition, social networks based on kinship, friendship, church membership, and school ties provided prospective business owners with financial assistance, training, business advice, and information about business opportunities. The first business opportunities for Korean immigrants of Chicago opened in Korean ethnic markets and non‐ethnic minority markets almost simultaneously in the early 1970s. While the demand of Koreans for their cultural products created an economic niche for Korean‐oriented businesses, the export‐import trade linkage between South Korea and the United States has paved the way for the entrance of Korean businesses into minority areas. Because of different economic niches, the two types of Korean businesses developed independently. The interethnic succession of residence, which had occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s also produced vacated business opportunities in Koreatown and black neighbourhoods, enabling Korean immigrants to enter these areas without great resistance from local businesses. After Korean immigrants had accumulated capital and experience in Korean ethnic markets and minority markets, they advanced into more capital‐intensive businesses like garment manufacturing. Korean immigrant professionals began to enter the Korean ethnic economy in the early 1980s when the foundation of the Korean ethnic economy was already established.     

Trust and Reciprocity: Are Effort and Money Equivalent?

Trust and reciprocity facilitate cooperation and are relevant to virtually all human interactions. They are typically studied using trust games: one subject gives (entrusts) money to another subject, which may return some of the proceeds (reciprocate). Currently, however, it is unclear whether trust and reciprocity in monetary transactions are similar in other settings, such as physical effort. Trust and reciprocity of physical effort are important as many everyday decisions imply an exchange of physical effort, and such exchange is central to labor relations. Here we studied a trust game based on physical effort and compared the results with those of a computationally equivalent monetary trust game. We found no significant difference between effort and money conditions in both the amount trusted and the quantity reciprocated. Moreover, there is a high positive correlation in subjects' behavior across conditions. This suggests that trust and reciprocity may be character traits: subjects that are trustful/trustworthy in monetary settings behave similarly during exchanges of physical effort. Our results validate the use of trust games to study exchanges in physical effort and to characterize inter-subject differences in trust and reciprocity, and also suggest a new behavioral paradigm to study these differences.     

Humans reciprocate by discriminating against group peers

Motivated by cycles of intergroup revenge in real-world conflicts, we experimentally test the hypothesis that humans practice group-based reciprocity: if someone harms or helps them, they harm or help other members of that person's group. Subjects played a trust game, then allocated money between other people. Senders whose partners returned more in the trust game gave more to that partner's group members. The effect was about half as large as the effect of direct reciprocity. Receivers' allocations to group members were not affected by their partners' play in the trust game, suggesting that group reciprocity was only triggered by strong norm violations. We discuss the role of group reciprocity in conflict among early humans.     

Reciprocal altruism as a felony: Antitrust and the prisoner's dilemma

Biologist study reciprocity. Because U.S. law outlaws cooperative commercial efforts to establish and maintain cartelized prices, for almost a century lawyers and judges also have been interested in the phenomenon of reciprocity. Judges and enforcement officials have set policy based upon intuitive hunches about the likelihood of reciprocity. This law is not consistent. Older court decisions exhibit fear that reciprocity is probable, while more recent doctrine and commentary have disparaged the likelihood of successful cooperation. This antitrust dispute can be understood in game theoretic terms similar to analyses of reciprocity developed by biological theorists. Axelrod's recent research on the repeated prisoner's dilemma game provides an explanation of how cooperative pricing can evolve despite competitive adversity. This research implies both support for the older antitrust fear of collusive reciprocity as well as criticism of recent and supposedly modern skepticism about the older view. But Axelrod's research as it stands is too simplistic for the market context. Before antitrust can use it, this research must be extended to account for three factors: for the existence of more than two equally sized players, for uncertainty in players' communication, and for the manner in which firms learn their managerial strategies.     

A behavioral test of accepting benefits that cost others: associations with conduct problems and callous-unemotionality

Background

Youth with conduct problems (CP) often make decisions which value self-interest over the interests of others. Self-benefiting behavior despite loss to others is especially common among youth with CP and callous-unemotional traits (CU). Such behavioral tendencies are generally measured using self- or observer-report. We are unaware of attempts to measure this tendency with a behavioral paradigm.

Methods/Principal Findings

In our AlAn''s (altruism-antisocial) game a computer program presents subjects with a series of offers in which they will receive money but a planned actual charity donation will be reduced; subjects decide to accept or reject each offer. We tested (1) whether adolescent patients with CP (n = 20) compared with adolescent controls (n = 19) differed on AlAn''s game outcomes, (2) whether youths with CP and CU differed significantly from controls without CP or CU, and (3) whether AlAn''s game outcomes correlated significantly with CP and separately, CU severity. Patients with CP and CU compared with controls without these problems took significantly more money for themselves and left significantly less money in the charity donation; AlAn''s game outcomes were significantly correlated with CU, but not CP.

Conclusions/Significance

In the AlAn''s game adolescents with conduct problems and CU traits, compared with controls without CP/CU, are disposed to benefit themselves while costing others even in a novel situation, devoid of peer influences, where anonymity is assured, reciprocity or retribution are impossible, intoxication is absent and when the “other” to be harmed is considered beneficent. AlAn''s game outcomes are associated with measures of CU. Results suggest that the AlAn''s game provides an objective means of capturing information about CU traits. The AlAn''s game, which was designed for future use in the MRI environment, may be used in studies attempting to identify the neural correlates of self-benefiting decision-making.     

A survey of the reciprocity characteristics of responses to end-of-day irradiations in oat,sunflower, and mung bean*

Abstract. Fluence-response and reciprocity data were collected for response to end-of-day FR in several light-grown plants. Coleoptile elongation in oat and hypocotyl elongation in sunflower and mung bean are stimulated by end-of-day FR, and anthocyanin accumulation in mung bean hypocotyls is decreased by the same treatment. All responses have threshold fluences at about 200μmol m^?2 and saturation fluences between 4000 and 10,000 μmol m^?2 Responses to end-of-day FR were reversible by subsequent R with threshold fluences between 2.0 and 3.0 μmol m^?2 and saturation fluences between 300 and 1000 μmol m² Rapid, reverse reciprocity failure which could not be explained by escape from photoreversibility was observed only for stimulation of oat coleoptile elongation by end-of-day FR. Oats also showed apparent reverse reciprocity failure for R, but it was entirely explainable by escape. Rapid, reverse reciprocity failure is not a ubiquitous phenomenon for responses to end-of-day irradiations.     

Primitive accumulation in modern China

This article surveys the history of primitive accumulation in China, from the early 1980s to the mid 2000s. It observes that the principal means of primitive accumulation have been the transformation of state and collective enterprises into capital, the peasants’ loss of land through various forms of dispossession, and the voluntary migration of peasants from agricultural to industrial pursuits. These mix dispossession and market mechanisms in complex ways. They have involved the creation of markets; but more, the creation of workers and capital. While the processes that drive primitive accumulation have economic logics, they also have logics that derive from concerns over social welfare, over environmental management, and over ethnic struggles. Furthermore, the state has been closely involved in the entire process—as a regionally differentiated actor, directly involved in ownership, asset transformation and the control of migration. Primitive accumulation in China does not have one motive, does not simply reflect class interests, is not a particular case of a global capitalist project, but is complex and localised.     

Time at a Standstill: Loss,Accumulation, and the Past Conditional in an East Berlin Neighborhood

This article reconsiders the question of nostalgic consumption in East Germany as embedded not within a national or a regional (post-socialist) politics of time, as much literature has done, but rather within a global post-Fordist reconfiguration of the relation between time, consumption, and politics. Examining an underclass East Berlin neighborhood that has come to epitomize ‘pastness’, I show the salience of material prosperity – or its lack – in shaping the senses of time of its inhabitants. Especially for the younger generation, nostalgic commodities mediate the growing abyss between loss and accumulation, futures and pasts, nostalgic longings and unrealistic aspirations. I argue that the nexus of time, politics, and consumption has been transformed with the fading away of what has been called the future perfect (the political temporality of utopian projects) and its metamorphosis into what I term here the past conditional, the temporality of lost futures, irredeemable opportunities, and vanquished political imaginaries.     

When Ingroups Aren’t “In”: Perceived Political Belief Similarity Moderates Religious Ingroup Favoritism

Motivated thinking leads people to perceive similarity between the self and ingroups, but under some conditions, people may recognize that personal beliefs are misaligned with the beliefs of ingroups. In two focal experiments and two replications, we find evidence that perceived belief similarity moderates ingroup favoritism. As part of a charity donation task, participants donated money to a community charity or a religious charity. Compared to non-religious people, Christians favored religious charities, but within Christians, conservative Christians favored religious charities more than liberal Christians did. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the perceived political beliefs of the charity accounted for the differences in ingroup favoritism between liberal and conservative Christians. While reporting little awareness of the influence of ideology, Christian conservatives favored religious charities because they perceived them as conservative and liberal Christians favored the community charity because they perceived it as liberal.